Lots of stuff happened in May (as you’ll soon see) and I didn’t have time to blog about all of the cool stuff going on at the time. So … my blog, my prerogative. *smile* (Besides, I just got all these cool pics … what better excuse for a trip down memory lane?)

With Friends Like These …

(L to R) Connie Dussl, Jennifer Eckes, Erin Duffy, me, Rhonda Laurie and Heidi Zim

Fellow TCCAN-er Dean Elwell and I greeted guests to the event.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a member of TCCAN – the Twin Cities Cabaret Artists’ Network. In May, we held our premier cabaret event directed by Timm Homly and featuring several of our group members.

The evening was comprised of a songs and stories presented by eight of TCCAN’s members – Dorothy Doring, Erin Duffy, Connie Dussl, Jennifer Eckes, Judi Gronseth, Timm Homly, Kevin Werner and Heidi Ziman — and took place at CAMP in St. Paul.

The show’s theme was friendship, or rather, how friendship has changed in our highly social, highly digitized world. Songs and stories ranged in topic from mix tapes to body image, and from the silly to the sensitive.

As The Rhythm Changes

I was so excited and honored to be a part of this improvised show. I’ve been wanting to work with composer/creator Mankwe Ndosi for some time. Imagine my delight when she called me about joining her project. Below are some more pics and a short audio excerpt.

We spent the week before the show in rehearsal. On the day of our photo shoot, we met at the home of our instrument creator — Douglas Eiwart to try out some instruments and continue to build “our troupe of griots.”

The shows themselves were incredible — a really fun, supportive environment for a spontaneous singer such as yours truly. But even though pics are great (see below), you can’t really get a sense of the show without hearing it. So I made you a short audio excerpt.

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An early rehearsal for "As The Rhythm Changes"

Libby tries out one of Douglas' hand-made instruments

Libby Turner Opanga

Aimee K. Bryant

Mankwe, me and Libby

Kenna Sarge

So this past Memorial Day weekend, the Songtaneous Blog turned two years old.

Yup. Two years, over 170 posts and nearly 240 comments.

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When I started this blog, I thought I’d be giving weekly singing and improv tidbits; you know, the nuts and bolts of helping members of my singing community become better spontaneous singers.

And while I’ve done some of that, over the past two years I’ve learned that many of you are not spontaneous singers (yet! I’m on a mission after all *smile*) and you read and enjoy my blog anyway.

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Darren Rowe (of ProBlogger fame) suggests using your blog to solve problems for readers.

Well, if I think about my problems (I figure I should deal with my own before attempting to tackle anyone else’s), many of them don’t often have much to do with vocal improvisation itself.

Yes, of course there are the problems that happen while improvising – what to sing, what to say, when to start, when to stop, fear, etc.

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But the focus of this blog has shifted over the past two years.

That’s because (thankfully) I figured out that what I learn from spontaneous singing (and creating and holding a space for spontaneous singing) can be applied to lots of other areas of my life. And even to your lives, too. *smile*

Both spontaneous singing and succeeding in my singing career are about trusting my instincts, speaking up when I have things to add, being brave about starting and graceful about quitting.

And it’s all about being open, creative and willing to connect.

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Thanks to all of you have come here to share and connect over the past two years.

Here’s to a tremendous third year.

The set for "As the Rhythm Changes" featuring our instrument "nations."

As I mentioned last Monday, I spent the week in rehearsals for “As the Rhythm Changes” – a workshop performance created by Mankwe Ndosi. This weekend, we presented three performances.

Each show started with Mankwe talking about the genesis of the project. The roots of the show began in discussions about sustainability and involved Mankwe conducting 20 interviews to talk to people about how we come to change our routines. How do we make changes when they’re voluntary and when they’re thrust upon us? What happens when we struggle? And how can we as communities examine our routines and our efforts to change them?

With each show, we invited more audience involvement; all of us believing that art should be something in which the artists and the witnesses participate together.

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The "ski-ra," two instruments from Crutchland and a rain stick.

After her introduction, Mankwe called us to the stage one by one and each of us spent a brief time in improvisation with her and the audience. After each of our duets, we created group pieces incorporating motifs from the three pieces we chose not to develop for this debut. On Friday and Saturday, Mankwe selected the groups; on Sunday, we volunteered.

(Note: We realized shortly into our week of rehearsals that the material Mankwe created was extremely rich and dense, so we spent our time developing one of her stories – Soil, Root, Devotion, Seed.)

Interspersed and accompanying the songs were parts we played on instruments invented and constructed by Douglas R. Eiwart and improvised dances stemming from seed movements Mankwe created with the help of cast member Kenna Sarge and others.

We organized our set into five instrument nations (photo above shows 3 of the 5) allowing us to move from individual spaces to come together in communities to create pieces.

My nation of dream chimes

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Because such a large part of each show was improvised, it felt like I was in three shows this weekend. Friday night’s performance was energetic and quick-paced as we claimed the space and revealed Mankwe’s “seeds” to our audience for the first time. Saturday night was more open and reflective with longer pieces and stories, including a sing-along with audience. Sunday, we dubbed family day and included more guest appearances (thanks to those who danced and sang!) and high spirits for wrapping up our successful first “run.”

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As the Rythm Changes Cast: Kenna Sarge, Sarah M. Greer, Aimee K. Bryant, Libby Turner-Opanga and creator Mankwe Ndosi

All in all, I was thrilled to work on such interesting material with such fabulous collaborators, including Aimee K. Bryant, Kenna Sarge, Libby Turner-Opanga. The collaboration seemed effortless; we all just “clicked.” As Aimee stated, there were no diva moments — everyone just jumped in with both feet and enjoyed the ideas, skills and talent each of us had to offer.

Mankwe wants to further develop the concept which hopefully means more changes to come.